I have pasted a link to an article where this Harvard professor wants to ban the $100, $50, and $20 bill.  In my opinion this guy should be run out of the United States.  Imagine giving your provider eighty to one hundred $5 bills.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-08-27/harvard-professor-launches-war-paper-money

People that supposedly support individual freedoms, free speech, minority rights, and the list goes on, find a way to control, limit ,at eliminate everything they disagree with.

$500 and $1000 bills but they were eliminated in order to make it harder to move drug money.

Just like they did in Berkeley a week or so ago.

Is it really any surprise it's a Harvard Professor trying to infringe on our right to privacy?

Yes, I do call them out over it.  Most of these people are those that wear their pants half way down there ass so having some extra change might pull their pants all the way off.

I'm afraid it is the wave of the future, so cowboy-up and get used to it.

It's not just in the USA, witness India doing the same thing with hardly any time for people to prepare.

Eventually, those clever enough to find ways to game the system survive.  Those most vulnerable will be hurt the most.

And of course, it's just another way for the government to control and learn everything they can about us by seeing how we move our money.

Bartering, anyone?

It's part of the " Big Brother Utopian " world that awaits us.
Lack of large denominations makes monetary transactions involving criminal activities very difficult.
Plus very hard to evade some taxes.

Resist !

-- Modified on 2/12/2017 12:15:10 PM

...bit coin?

There was a good piece in the New Yorker about Sweden's move to a cashless society. They've eliminated cash. I read it a few months ago, but I recall a few big points:
1) Sweden is small & very homogeneous, so broad solutions are easier to roll out
2) Elderly people and people in rural areas really protested. Keep in mind that those are powerful constituencies in the USA.
3) No one else on earth wants Swedish cash. Lots of people want our dollars

Look at the Swiss - they love their cash, despite being in a tiny obedient country. Then again, lots of stuff we didn't think would happen is happening.

I could use a plumber and a mover!  lol

That providers stash some cash in gold and silver coins, and for some reason that thread got pulled off the TER board in Las Vegas.  You would have to start carrying duffel bags of $1 and $5 bills.  It would be a big inconvenience for casinos too.

The bitcoin is great.  However, government has no way to control it.  It's one of the major advantage of bit coin, and might be the major reason for it's uncertain future.  That's why people love using bitcoin for illegal activities, money laundering, and that might be the major market for bitcoin.  It's hard to believe any country will accept bitcoin as a main currency.  

Might be another issue where they get everyone to do something with their cash instead of leaving it in the bank.  Money does not change hands as quickly now, and the so called recovery is not like the ones after previous recessions.  They talk about the VELOCITY of money as it moves through the economy.  if interest rates go negative then gold and silver should do well.

U se credit and debit cards, retailers would go nuts with all of the small bills that would flood their registers.  The banks would have a fit too.  So this could be a way to rebel against such a move by monetary authorities.

It will never happen to the $20 bill, the left will not allow it.  Harriet Tubman's face will be replacing ole Andy Jackson's soon, so you know nothings going to happen.  I don't think even Trump would go there.

The market has already priced in three rate increases this year and the fears of the US going from what has been virtual zero interest rates into the negative like what was happening in the EU and what has been the "norm" in Japan for years seems to have abated.

Just how many Harvard professors do you know that are right wing.  

and Trump is the last person in this country pushing for a cash free society. Take your left wing blinders off for a moment and wake up to the fact that the right doesn't have a monopoly on trying to take your freedoms away. Just look at P4P, feminists are a bigger enemy to hookers and johns than even the most right wing religious pukes.

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I suspect it will take a while before we're done with paper money and by the time we are there will be payment processing technologies that provide a similar level of anonymity for most of us in terms fo day to day so will likely have little impact on anything.

As for the Harvard professor that's old info -- just look at the date, middle of last year. India's attempt to crack down has really backfired.

I think the incentive and goal in India was a bit different than what would drive things in the USA but that said there are a lot of unhappy people in India which you never want in a democracy. Moreover, I think a lot of people have concluded the attempt to bring a lot of taxable hidden wealth into the picture for the government and public finances will be transient at best.

Government made it's move, now time for the reaction.

BitCoin anyone? (though actually the block-chain might present alternatives to solve the problem  we've not really considered just yet so crypto currencies might not even be needed)

Except the average consumer, even collectively, is not going to really drive any change in velocity. Business is will do that and that's mostly going to be electronic and credit not actual cash. Think about it, does Delta show up at Boeing with a bunch of crates of cash to by their next plane?

but that might result in the dropping of the legal tender laws and open the door to accepting other paper as a means of payment. Would just need a good (trustworthy) central party to make sure whatever was actually backing the paper existed. In fact, we wouldn't even need paper at that point can could  eliminate the risk of counterfeiting the private paper.

Any providers want to trade a blowjob for DATY?  

Having some gold around when they do away with anything over a 20 dollar bill will help nicely in this hobby.  It really is only a matter of time before > 20 bills will go away.  They will claim it is to fight terror.  Before long, it wiill be instructions on where to spend it.

Left and right are relative positions so perhaps the other posters does see Harvard as a bastion of right wind neonazis -- is that a scary enough thought for the day

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I agree with most of your opinions here except that the market has already priced in the future growth.  US companies are doing quite well with the recent strong  earning reports.  The market growth is just keeping pace with the earning growth,  otherwise, the market will become cheaper and cheaper.  Looking back for the past few earning seasons, we are clearly in an upward trending pattern.  Although nobody can predict the future, it looks like that the market wants to keep this uptrend pattern and doesn't want to go back.  The tax cut and Infrastructure reconstruction plan from Trump policy would be huge stimulus for the future economy growth, if these can be accomplished.  I am not sure if these have been priced in or not.  No matter how much moaning and groaning from Trump haters, it's hard to not enjoying the market rally since the election.   For both left and right, it's better  just forget the political stand point and enjoy the market rally until it's turning south.

-- Modified on 2/12/2017 5:50:37 PM

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So you are still right.

Cash is largely used for illegal or illicit activities.  These days there are so many electronic alternatives used for legal transactions that banning cash would achieve the desired goal of being hard on crime.  Rogoff is an arch conservative that would probably be a Trump advisor if he wasn't already a top economic advisor for Senator McCain.   This is what the GOP under the Trump administration looks like.

Its certainly not a liberal idea.  Liberals need to pay cash for all the weed we buy and to pay our illegal immigrant maids and gardeners.

I am not a guy and not about to get on your roof to fix it, but I can repair leaks

j/k No chickens for me.

Unless it gets hacked again...

But I agree, there are and will be alternatives and I don't believe for a minute the plan would be put in place quickly (actually I don't believe it will happen at all except by people adopting new payment technologies rather than a legal dictate on currency denomination limit).

Perhaps the other poster was from MIT and not to be out lefted by Harvard?

But more than a few police departments and government agencies need the cash trade to make their money off these illegal activities. Moreover, the biggest crimes are all conducted electronic payments and the banking system.

The cash portion of the crime world is really more about the small time players and the people who don't believe certain things should be illegal (recreational drug, P4P, gambling are probably the biggest ones that would be impacted).

Interesting article in the local paper here in southern Oregon yesterday talking about the unintended consequences of banks refusing to deal with the burgeoning cannabis-related businesses hereabouts. Since the feds still list weed as a controlled substance and thus listing all cannabis-related businesses as illegal (even though they are legal under state law), it makes those businesses all cash. NO bank accounts for businesses that deal in illegal products (sound vaguely familiar? some parallel to our beloved hobby?)

So we have the situation where all of the related expenses of running a business (paying employees, paying landlords, paying for lumber and fencing to build fences to screen off your crop from view, AND paying the state-required taxes) are done on a STRICTLY cash basis!

While I can't stand the smell of the stuff myself (either while growing or in use) and don't use personally, I do applaud how it is delaying the strategy of the forces of control in our society. Cash keeps it real, cash lets you do what you want when you want, and makes it more difficult for those forces of control to reign in us rebellious types.

Somehow I don't think that a brown paper bag will be as discrete as a envelope.

Because the PM of India just did the same thing and sent the country into economic turmoil .... Larry Summers had something to say about that and he is Harvard alum, too  
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/11/22/india-just-made-a-big-mistake-with-its-currency-ban/?utm_term=.68c9c26545e0

Larry Summers is Harvard alumni and doesn't want to impose on your freedom. Please don't make blanket statements, demonizing people

Which is comparing apples to potatoes ... stop blaming the "left" ( who, BTW have given us civil rights for minorities and LGBT, NOT the Wrong Wing ). This is a corporate matter, and BOTH parties serve their greedy masters.

Kenneth Rogoff is a Republican.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/meet-carmen-reinhart-and-kenneth-rogoff-the-harvard-professors-who-thought-they-had-austerity-licked-8583600.html

Is that my stack of available troops dwindles down faster than I can recruit more!